because they've gone so far, and especially with palin's talk about these death panels. it's so demonstrably false. i hear what chris was saying about how you can never underestimate the power of a myth like that. but i really think that it has gone so far, that there's going to be push-back and that people will realize how crazy those claims are. i think in the town hall today that obama had, you know, it was too much -- my criticism of that was it was too much like a bush event. it was so orchestrated. it was so friendly. he does very well with push-back and critics. he should have allowed a less hand-picked crowd to be there and not have that great disconnect between all these screaming critics and the very sort of applauding, smiling crowd. >> yeah, let's not replace the gunman with the peanut gallery. your thoughts, chris cillizza? >> i was going to whole-heartedly -- i think melinda was exactly right. i was struck -- the thing that struck me, you see these angry

crowds yelling at arlen specter, you work for us, claire mccaskill having to tell people to be quiet. and then you see this event where the president of the united states says, is there anybody out there who's suspicious of this? he's asking for someone to sort of come -- in truth the person who stood up was not exactly, you know, someone -- these angry mobs we've seen. melinda's exactly right, the disconnect i was really, really struck by. >> specter looked pretty good, surprisingly good, just standing there, taking it, you know. trying to put his point across but standing up to the angry mob looks a lot better. >> he's a great argument for american health care, i'll tell you that, look at this guy. he's 80 years old going head to head with this guy. anyway, chris cillizza, a charming event. melinda, you're the best. what's the thing called? >> politicsdaily.com. >> politicsdaily.com. join us tomorrow night 5:00 and 7:00 eastern for more "hardball." "countdown" with keith olbermann starts right now.

which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? the tale of two town halls, and one rumored administration deal with big pharma. >> i do hope that we will talk with each other and not over each other. >> this really can't be about who's the loudest. it has to be about something that's fair. it can't be about who's the loudest. >> somehow it's gotten spun into this idea of death panels. i am not in favor of that. >> the debate, the blow-back, the denied deal with the health care sector with lawrence o'donnell. the continuing sad town hall undercurrent, the racism with professor melissa sshasewell. and sarah palin pulls back. she may have done it because her negligence has governor contributed to a real-life

de facto death panel in alaska. and onwards the deathers bleat, some times h s hazardous. "investors business weekly" editorial of the nightmare of britain's national health. people such as scientists stephen hawking wouldn't have a chance in the uk, where the national health service would save the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless. um, do you realize dr. hawking is from the uk and national health has helped keep him flour flourishing these last 45 years? and "worsts," dick morris on how to influence congressmen. >> if they are not terrorized in august by the public outpouring and they don't have thousands and thousands of handwritten letters on their doorstep awaiting for them when they return from the august recess, they'll fold. >> he actually said it. actually said democrats should be terrorized.

and he didn't get fired by fox. all that and more now on "countdown." >> they will not mess with us. good evening from new york. no questions were out of bounds, no people were screened out. and so today in new hampshire, in pennsylvania, in missouri and elsewhere, we saw the president and other democrats face the real america, real supporters of health care reform, real opponents of health care reform. and other real americans to ignorant or scared to realize that they had let themselves become mega phones for lie lies that do not serve them but only profit off of them. our fifth story tonight, president obama's face-off at a health care town hall. returning to new hampshire recognized as the birthplace of american political town halls, mr. obama got a warm welcome, courteous questions, respectful scepticism. that was inside the hall. outside, one protesters felt it was necessary to show up armed, which he was allowed to do under law and the law kept him under close watch. other parents who felt fine using their daughter to propagate lies picked on sarah

palin's warning debunked by elected republicans and denied by ms. palin that mr. obama's health care reform would involve government decisions about when old people should die. inside another child posed a question about these lies. >> when i was walking in, i saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care. how do kids know what is true? and why do people want a new system that can help more of us? >> well, the -- i've seen some of those signs. but let me just be specific about some things that i have been hearing lately that we need to just -- just dispose of here. the rumor that's been circulating a lot lately is this

idea that somehow the house of representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we've decided that we don't -- it's too expensive to let her live anymore. and there are various -- there are some variations on this -- this theme. it turns out that i guess this arose out of a provision in one of the house bills that allowed medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice, et cetera. >> in missouri, senator claire mccaskill did not fare quite as well as the president. this was the reaction, just by daring to begin by announcing she would pick unscreened questions out of a goldfish bowl. >> i think what we're doing is fair.

i don't want this to be who talks the loudest. sit down! >> hey, hey. >> the senator succeeded on selling the crowd on goldfish health democracy but on other matters that they do not recognize as central to the health care issue, consensus remained elusive. >> i will start with the part that will bring the immediate reaction, and that is i believe global warming is real and it is a huge problem. >> she also asked about other pressing health care matters such as money will go to a.c.o.r.n. or whether legal immigrants will take their coverage back to their homeland. of course, one pressing issue came up more than any other. >> here's the question -- can you promise that my tax dollars will not fund abortion? i can tell you that there is not one word in this bill that would allow federal tax dollars to be spent on abortion.

christine brewer says, i do not support government health care. thank you. taxes should not be used for abortions. cynthia, this is the abortion question again. would you like to ask a different question, cynthia? okay. >> despite a crowd that booed the news that unemployment is down, that their own 401(k)s are doing better than they are, senator mccaskill did seem to succeed in sneaking a few actual salient points under their radar. >> can i see a show of hands of everyone in the room who has medicare? everyone who has medicare. okay. now, let me ask you -- let me ask you to raise your hands if you have medicare and you want to get rid of it. okay. we did very, very aggressive tort reform and there has been a dramatic dropoff in malpractice lawsuits in missouri. now, i'm -- i'm wondering how

many of you that are clapping saw your health care costs go down? >> how much? >> yeah. >> and despite so many interruptions, booing, cat calls, so on, that she felt compelled to claim, we've got good manners in missouri. i swear we do. the proceedings remained relatively orderly but with only one disruption, a fight in the crowd leading to law enforcement action. in pennsylvania, senator arlen specter let another protester have his say before also being led away. but specter had to deal with questions just as far afield, if not more so, than did mccaskill. >> did you read the koran, senator? >> the koran? >> yes. >> no. >> back in new hampshire -- i was going to do a spit take, i'm sorry, mr. obama solicited questions specifically from skeptics of health care reform. some of those questions came from the left. one man identified himself as a republican asking a reasonable question in reasonable fashion. >> good afternoon, mr. president. my name is ben hirshenson.

i'm from maine and also florida. i'm a republican. i don't know what i'm doing here, but i'm here. >> we're happy to have you. we're happy to have you. >> mr. president, you have been quoted over the years when you were a senator, and perhaps even before then, that you were essentially a supporter of a universal plan. i'm beginning to see that you're changing that. do you honestly believe that? >> president obama clarified the nature of his plan, not single payer, meaning not the government paying for everyone's health care, but, yes, universal, at least in that everyone ought to be able to afford it. the key elements of the plan, in fact, were emphasized by him before he took the first question, acknowledging as he did that some seek to drown out these simple facts. >> for all of the chatter and the yelling and the shouting and the noise, what you need to know is this -- if you don't have health

insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. if you do have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need. >> with us tonight once again, msnbc political analyst lawrence o'donnell. also contributing to the huffington post, former chief of staff of the finance committee. thanks for coming in. >> good to be here. >> what should we make of obama in new hampshire, skeptics reasonable to his face, others with vile things to say sort of at the perimeter? >> now you see why senators want to be president. if barack obama was doing a town hall meeting in joliet today as the senator from illinois, he would probably be getting shouted down a bit. he would probably be running into arlen specter troubles. but, look, we also saw the most masterful political communicator of our time taking the stage in new hampshire with a respectful crowd.

that republican from maine seems to me to be a mainstream republican. he has strong doubts about what the president is up to, respects him completely as both president and a human being and was able to have that exchange with him. that is very difficult for senators and congressmen. they don't command that kind of respect. >> and that's the problem. if the mccaskill and specter-style town halls prove the norm over this month, no matter how well senator mccaskill did, and she did pretty well, she led them down to several paths which there was no getting out of, no matter how loud they booed. what does that do, if that's the predominant shape of this debate, what does it do to the ultimate issue of health care reform? >> it just pushes them into a softer measure. there were e-mails going out weeks ago saying let's push for reconsideration of single payer. let's push for public option. these are not being heard at these meetings. what's being heard is let's push away from public option.

push in a softer, softer direction. so that's where the political momentum is going right now through this town hall process. >> where are they? where are the people pushing for that or at least pushing for what's in the bill right now? >> they are probably there and they are probably waiting for their turn to speak and they are getting drowned out. in some respect this may be working in the way the town hall thing works. congressmen and senators do not base what they are doing entirely on town halls. they recognize this is a couple of hundred people, sometimes in a state of several million people, and they are the activists and they tend to be there for a reason that do not represent the whole state. and so they've got to be doing polling statewide to figure out exactly what their states are thinking and what their districts are thinking. >> so do we expect -- obviously, we'll get to the uglier side, the undertext of all of this, but do we expect that might even

legislators are seeing what is exactly as you described it, incredibly vocal, incredibly minority, minority and people don't have their facts and are not bringing stuff that is germane to the debate or would oppose anything that had obama's name on it? is that sense coming through at all or are the legislators being bullied? >> it's much trickier now to make that as it used to be because of the amplification that the internet provides for these things. 15 years ago, 20 years ago in a senate office, you might get 1,000 telegrams in a day that were all identically worded. they would generally be counted as one by the smart politician. now, it's much trickier to figure out what's happening, how much is grassroots, how much is astroturf? it's very clear there's an astroturf phenomenon on the opposition side of this health care thing, but it is not easy in a place like missouri to figure out how much of that is, is fake and is organized in astroturf and how much of it is a genuine uprise. >> there's a practical thing behind the loudness of the noise.

there are unanswered questions about how much, if anything, the president gave away in conversations, negotiations, whichever -- somewhere along that spectrum. with the drug companies in return for voluntary cost cutting, do congressmen show deference to that deal, if there was a deal, and in fact was there a deal? >> well, this is exactly the kind of question that would be coming from the left in these town meetings if they weren't getting drowned out. there is -- it's now very murky as to whether there was a deal. "the new york times" felt it had confirmation that there was a deal. the white house is officially saying there is no deal. it's a very weird deal, because it can't be scored by cbo in the way that they've currently talked about it, and so it's -- the theory is the drug companies would cut in effect their prices by $80 billion, saving the government roughly $80 billion in terms of purchasing on prescription drugs. there isn't a way to hold them to that deal. there isn't a way for the pharmaceutical industry to hold the government to that deal. and the reason we know as much about it as we do is because the pharmaceutical lobbyists got very upset when henry waxman's committee actually violated the deal and legislated exactly what they don't want. >> what would have been given up for $80 billion worth of drug

company cuts? >> well, the deal theoretically gets the pharmaceutical companies support for the bill, which really functions as a lack of organized opposition. these companies don't really get out there and push and support in a way that helps this kind of legislation. they simply don't attack. i don't think you could expect much more from the pharmaceutical company for this kind of deal. >> same premises, protection, company, only there's no break and there's no protection. >> there was a very similar sound. >> i got. lawrence o'donnell from msnbc and huffington post and probably once or twice from maine. >> i've been there. >> i figured as much. >> and once again, there is that subtext -- push back against the lynching imagery, segregation imagery, racism imagery, and it gets louder and uglier, louder and uglier towards congressman david scott of atlanta, who pushed back against all of it at a town hall last week. overnight, somebody spray painted something on a sign bearing the congressman's name

outside one of his district offices. the graffiti was in the form of a swastika. and the congressmen is african-american. the daily double of hate.

a 54-year veteran of congress said he has seen or heard nothing like this since the ku klux klan. the undertone from some of the agitators at the town hall racism. and late news there was an arrest for gus possession, not the one that was shown at portsmouth, new hampshire, today at the president's town hall. and where did sarah palin get the idea that government health care might include death panels and lead literally to death? from the government health care she oversaw as governor of alaska? and it doesn't get worse than this. a fox commentator calls upon americans to make sure democratic congressmen are, quote, terrorized. for arthritis pain... in your hands... knees... and back. for little bodies with fevers.. and big bodies on high blood pressure medicine.

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not to make more of this than it deserves, but this is just in from the city manager's office and the chief of police's office in portsmouth, new hampshire, where the president was involved in that town hall today. you saw somebody with a -- bearing a firearm into that event today with a license. this is a separate story. the city of portsmouth announcing the arrest of a mr. richard terry young for carrying a loaded pistol without a license, also misdemeanor offense at approximately 9:40 a.m. eastern time this morning. mr. young, it says, located inside of the high school where he was detained by the secret service, arrested by the police for that offense, carrying a pocket knife. a search of his vehicle, police in portsmouth say, parked on school property revealed a loaded gun.

that is the mugshot of mr. terry young, arrested today. that is the basis for the second charge. in addition to those offenses, according to portsmouth police, richard terry young is being investigated by the u.s. secret service for possible federal crimes resulting from the same series of events. bail had not been set and mr. young according to the portsmouth police department, remains in the custody in new hampshire for apparently carrying a pocketknife into the senior high school in portsmouth, new hampshire, at the time of the president's town hall today, and then having an unlicensed firearm in his vehicle as well. if there are further updates, obviously, we will keep you posted on them. to this point, no one congratulates themselves on powers of perception when the sinking feeling that there is racism at some of these health care town halls proves true, when the suspicion is born out by an obvious display of hatred, about to suggest this was a case of that, an effigy or sign of a racial slur. but it does exist and it can't be ignored.

and it is a undercurrent that connects them the birthers to the deathers. congressman david scott, democrat of georgia, victim of it. at a recent town hall meeting he dared to accuse disruptive participants who tried to hijack that meeting. scott's district over in smyrna, georgia, has now been vandalized. a swastika painted on the sign overnight. that's reminded john dingell, from town halls, of something from a very long time ago. >> the last time i had to confront something like this is when i voted for the civil rights bill and my opponent voted against it. at that time we had a lot of ku klux klan folks and white supremacists and folks in white sheets and other things running around causing trouble. >> but there's nothing more illustrated than an account sent from the "atlantic" magazine of someone planning to be at the town hall meeting of betsy

castor and betty reed in tampa. i was to attend the health care summit. i never made it into the building. i never experienced in my life, really experienced outright racism in a public place. signs of obama hung in effigy, racial slurs on signs, people chanting negative words. too many to list. the hatred was in their eyes, and they actually scared me for a moment. at first i was shocked and then a little scared. then i got outright mad in the span of one minute and i actually left. let's welcome professor melissa harris-lacewell. >> good evening, professor. >> hi, nice to see you. >> this isn't at every one of these meetings but they're there. when racism becomes blat & no longer hidden by euphemisms, how much is the danger not just to the conversation but to people's safety? >> certainly, i think the greatest danger to people's safety is people coming armed to these meetings and the biggest problem in terms of conversation is the shouting. and i think you and i both know

that talking about race and labeling individuals as racists is the fastest way to shut down a conversation about what's really going on around questions of race. and it shuts down quickly because people start saying, well, i'm not racist. i have black friends, or i've never used the "n" word, so i think what we want to focus on here is exactly what congressman dingell was focusing on is the fact these tactics and these strategies have been used by the same groups, these hate groups like the ku klux klan, and, heck, even by southern governments during the civil rights movement, these same strategies of massive resistance against change. so what we want to see is that these similar tactics have been used by those who are clearly racially biased. >> to the congressman's remarks that invoked the debates in the '60s and klan in the '60s, isn't this largely because of what we went through in the '60s, '70s and '60s, isn't this for those who are racists and maintain

that stance or is there a reverse tipping point, could it regain not just an influential foothold in this country but a decisive one, a mainstream one. is that still plausible? >> i think there's no doubt that part of this sort of anxiety around taxes, around health care, around all of these sort of disprettyish issues that are coming together in this anxiety has to do with fear of an african-american president, a woman in the -- as secretary of state, a latina on the supreme court. you can remember the final four contenders for the democratic nomination. it's a white woman, a black man, a white southerner, and a latino. that kind of change in america produces a great deal of anxiety for people who are not quite sure that, you know, governing amongst women and brown and black people constitutes real american governance. what i do think is the important or the good story here is that the klan did in fact march

against the civil rights movement in the 1960s. they did press back against civil rights legislation, and yet our congress, our representatives, had the courage, the moral courage as well as the democratic courage, to push forward with those reforms because they were necessary. so we have to hope that this congress will be similarly, morally courageous. >> and to that point, there seems to be a strategy for protecting the town halls from agitation that serves no purpose. even health care reform itself might go through unscathed. but what happens to this hate that's been tapped into? does it just move on organically to the next presidential initiative, or does it have to be prompted to move there by agitation, by media? could it die between events, or is it with us? >> i suspect it won't die. i suspect that if sort of agitation around race were going to simply, you know, fall apart of its own accord or die, we would have seen that, you know, in the 1870s or in the 1970s. i have a father who went to jim

crow public school, and from the time that i was a small child, he always signed my birthday cards, the struggle continues. and so we are part of a continuing struggle. and we need not lose courage on that front. >> melissa harris-lacewell of princeton. as always, thank you for your perspective. the story that there are wild elephants roaming the sewers of new york city. that's just urban legends. that they have them in thailand? no comment. and for the second time in a month, a talking head on fox promotes terrorism. he used the future tense of the word terrorized. he's neither reprimanded nor asked to even rephrase. "worst persons in the world" ahead on "countdown." e whip, and two espressos. make one a double. she's fiber focused! i have two cappuccinos, one coffee with room, one large mocha latte, a medium macchiato, a light hot chocolate, hold the whip, and two espressos, one with a double shot. gonna take more than coffee to stay this focused. stay full and focused through the morning... with a breakfast of kellogg's® frosted mini-wheats® cereal;

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"bests" in a moment. now best liars about health care reform. and thank goodness for stephen hawking he's not british. back in 1964 he was described as having the world's largest iq. at age 10, it was measured at 228. her name is marlon savant. and she writes an article for a magazine and, yes, savant does mean a person of learning. yes, it is her real name. and, yes, i still bet on hawking. let's play "oddball." to rayon, thailand. why did the baby elephant cross the street to get to the other side? except this one didn't.

it fell into a man hole. the accident happened when the elephant's handlers were taking it to work, slave drivers. anyway, the villagers gathered around and they held hands and they encouraged the baby elephant to drive its way out using its circus ears. but more practical minds prevailed and the big machinery was brought out. bulls dozer, baby. the pachyderm passed the time contemplating its worker's comp claim. was ultimately freed unharmed. of course, we'll never, never forget. to the netherlands. not a bird, not a plane but a flying bike. if you count four seconds and about four feet off the ground as flying. the dutch aeronautics student who built this thing certainly does count it. his craft has a wingspan of 85 feet and uses pedal power. which makes him officially the first dutchman to go fly a bike. after that he said, quote, that was super and it might really help him in impressing the ladies. why did sarah palin look at health care reform and see death panels? guilt, perhaps? because health care in alaska when she was governor was so bad, the governor found that the state could not ensure the

health and well being of the citizens she was supposed to be protecting. and there's only room for one conservative queen bee. meghan mccain versus michelle valkin. but our "best persons in the world." best liars about health care reform. dateline los angeles, investor's business daily, home of fascist editorials that would make attila the hun blush. but this is priceless. the british system of national health which has been in place since 1945. people such as scientist stephen hawking wouldn't have a chance in the uk where the national health service would say the life of this man because his physical handicaps is essentially worthless. you geniuses do know that stephen hawking is from the uk, right? he's actually been treated by the british national health service, right? with its services, he's lived through about 45 years of als, right? the goofballs at investor's business daily were confused by the fact his voice synthesizer did not have a british accent. dateline new york.

gregg jarrett of cluster fox about the speaker of the house. pelosi sort of suggested that any american citizen who dare voice an objection in protest is say nazi, apparently based on one isolated incident. but now she stepped it up and she's labeling protesters un-american. isn't that destructive rather than constructive. oh, my god is he dim. pelosi never called anybody a nazi. she noted correctly that people had showed up at several town halls carrying swastikas and symbols like that, like the one today. and she never called protesters un-american. she wrote that drowning people out at town halls was un-american. people who were for reform or against it. and "dateline" pineville, louisiana. senator david vitter of that state held his own town hall on health care. said he was totally and unalterably opposed to it. then he mocked democrats whose town halls had been disrupted by paid agitators. the angry mob, he said, is always welcome at my events. and the best security is to do what the people want you to do. very nice. except for this one note about the nature of vitters, no-holds-barred, tough-talking

town hall which comes from the pages of the alexandria louisiana newspaper "the town talk." quote, the panel of speakers all joined vitter in opposing the reform package being debated in congress. questions from audience members were screened and selected in advance of the event. here, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty. ♪ (laughing through computer) good night, buddy. good morning, dad. (announcer) oreo. milk's favorite cookie.

it was a state-run program intended to assist the elderly and disabled with basic needs like eating, bathing, getting to the bathroom. it was deemed so poorly managed as one news report put it, the state could not ensure the health and well being the state they were supposed to serve. the mismanagement was fatal with heartbreaking and stunning frequency. the state in question -- sarah

palin's state of alaska. the third story, never mind palin's fictitious death panels, the governor of alaska presided over some virtual death panels of her own. a federal court in june found health panels designed to keep people out of institutions were plagued with problems. the anchorage daily news reporting, in one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. the centers were medicare and medicaid services. banned the states from admitting more patients into their programs until improvements were made. the suspension on admittance to one program has been lifted but the ban remains on another alaska medicaid program which provides another wide range of services for people with severe needs. it might be assumed such a program in any state would have these type of issues. but, no, it's just alaska. it was the only state in the union to be put under a federal moratorium. one time another republican lashed out against the palin death panel talk. the senator from georgia, supporter of expanding medicare's end-of-life coverage speaking with "the washington post." i just had a phone call, he said, where someone said sarah palin's website talked about the

house bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. how someone would take an end-of-life directive or a living will as that is nuts. you're putting the individual rather than the government. don't know how that got so mixed up. joining me from anchorage, talk radio host and contributor, shannyn moore. shannyn, good evening. >> good evening, keith. >> first to senator isaacson's point. isn't the reason why things got so mixed up in this health care debate because former governor palin might have been registering some guilt over how many people died on her health care watch in her state? >> i don't think that sarah palin registers guilt. i really don't. there is a very, very long list of who's fault everything has been. whether it's the johnston family, whether it's the bloggers in alaska, will whether it's campaign people. it's never her fault. so i don't think this is part of a registration of that. i think this is really a cry to her base. >> palin would have you believe that the medicaid system is

flawed. but in this particular case, isn't part of the problem, or wasn't at least part of the problem during a considerable period of time here, the incompetence of her administration, not of some sort of systemic problem with medicaid? >> isn't it interesting that people keep running for office, they keep telling us the government's bad and then they get in and they prove it? she's a classic case. she talks about how bad the government is and how bureaucrats are bad. and yet she's spent a lot of time on the road last year running to be a bureaucrat and being part of government. she got in and she proved it. and i spent a lot of time today talking to this department. i talked to four or five different people there. and my understanding is they actually requested funds, they requested more resources and were denied. all of this in a year of huge surpluses. and, you know, alaskans already have a permanent fund dividend check that we get from oil royalties, which she put out an additional over $700 million in

just checks that was above and beyond. and so in a time where we had budget surpluses, she didn't choose to fund this department. it wasn't important to her. she's had multiple people quit because they didn't agree with her parental consent, her parental consent bill that she was trying to put through. which is a, you know, pro-life i suppose or you can say anti-choice act. so in looking at this, you know, i don't know that it was the department's fault. i think they were underfunded. and i did talk to several legislators today who said that they are -- there's a very good chance that they're going to open a hearing and find out exactly whose fault this was. >> putting aside the governor's redistribution of wealth, did she pull back on the death panel rhetoric between friday and sunday because of this story of her own poor track record on this subject, because that was out there and could get national attention? were these things interrelated in some way? >> well, you know, someone called me and read me her

facebook entry, which is now how she is putting out any information via facebook. so they read it to me and i thought it must be a hoax. i didn't think it was possibly true that she would go as far as say that obama's health care was, you know, death panels. but she did. and she did pull it back subsequently on sunday night to a certain extent. and i'm not sure that it was the backlash or what, but she -- she has this sort of word salad that she uses that is sort of palin speak, that is really like a pavlovian response that happens from her base. and they react and show up and shout down. in fact, yesterday i was at a her palinistas, as we call them, were out in force with bullhorns shouting down anybody who had anything to say about health care, anything that they had to say about this moratorium, and about the energy surplus or the energy stimulus that was actually overturned yesterday by

our legislature. >> well, don't ruin their reasons for living. don't tell them she resigned. shannyn moore, radio host, contributor to huffington post. thank you as always. >> my pleasure, keith. not even seven months in the wilderness and the conservatives are already devouring each other as meghan mccain says to michelle malkin, my twitter following is bigger than your book sales. "worsts" can you really suggest democratic congressmen be terrorized and not even retract it? you can if you work for fox. and rachel maddow joins me at the top of the hour. strings are not pulled and phony protests are not created for nothing. this costs money. special report on where it's coming from, coming up. your teeth are no different. everyday acids can cause irreversible loss of enamel. new crest pro-health enamel shield protects against enamel loss by forming a micro-thin shield against acid attack. only crest pro-health toothpastes protect all these areas dentists check most. save your enamel. once it's gone it can be gone for good.

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three of them. and in "worsts" getting away with saying democratic congressmen should be terrorized. getting away with that obama was comparable to a lucky black cat. and the magic number is ten, the number of times frank burns of news referred to his own ratings or own magazine cover during his own show tonight. you're slipping, bill-o. our next class laptops could be perfect for you. we got student feedback and designed them specifically for college. are they legit brands, though? boom! we partnered with hp, toshiba, sony and dell. okay. uh, what's the square root of 841? 29. announcer: laptops designed for college and thousands of people eager to help.

first, tonight's "worst conservative pundit old media, new media cat fight next. first, tonight's "worst persons in the world," brought to you by fixed news, which today saw geico and sargento cheese. join the advertiser boycott of glenn "lonesome" beck.

tonight's lead story, bill-o the clown and his ratings. his fourth story last night was bill-o the clown, about the picture of him on the cover of "parade" magazine. his last story last night was bill-o the clown, about his ratings again. he did briefly suspend his televised self-gratification but then it was back to the ratings. he notes their increase and asked a salient question -- why is this happening? well, a major reason is the health care debate. while the other network news broadcasts downplay the dissent and promote the government takeover of the health care industry, fox news highlights the intense program. haven't heard much about that lately. since he has asked why fox's ratings are up, let me answer it for him. the answer is because what they do at fox news is not news. they bailed out of a live coverage of the obama's town hall meeting today. what they do is prejudice and

paranoia reinforcement. both sides of an issue are covered with balance. one is treated as the revered word and to balance that, the other side is dismissed as smear mongering and government takeovers and the work of loons. there's no news on fox news. and bill o'reilly is not a journalist nor a newsman nor a reporter. in fact to borrow somebody else's phrase, as a reporter, i wouldn't send bill o'reilly to cover a john overflowing. the silver in harvard professor and columnist of "the financial times," scholar, counterintuitive and, oops, cliche racist imagery user. his new column begins, president barack obama reminds me of felix the cat, one of the best-loved cartoon characters of the 1920s, felix was not only black, but he was also very, very lucky. and that pretty much sums up the 44th president of the united states. the column concludes, even felix the cat's luck ran out during the depression. his creator pat sullivan drank himself to death in 1933,

baffled that audiences now preferred mice like mickey and jerry. president obama should take note. as should harvard. not only is he making an imagery comparison between the president of the united states and a black cat, but maybe worse, he is suggesting that obama needs to take note of somebody drinking himself to death. but our winner is dick morris. not only insisting that those opposed to health care reform ignore the pleadings, even from some republicans to be polite at the town hall, but encouraging them to, well, influence the blue dog democrats who might yet delay reform. if the blue dogs, quote, are not terrorized during august by the public outpouring, and they don't have thousands and thousands of handwritten letters on their doorstep waiting for them when they return from their august recess, they'll fold. terrorize, dick morris actually used the word terrorize to suggest what should be done to u.s. congressmen to u.s. citizens. this is the second time in a month fox has put somebody on who has either advocated a terror attack by bin laden in this country as if it would be good for this country or he used the actual term terrorism as if it should be directed towards

any american ever. and nobody's been fired. nobody's been suspended. nobody's been reprimanded. nobody's been made to retract or correct the comments on the air or off. probably because fox's executives have spent the summer trying to suppress criticism of their worthless product, or because they agree with dick morris. today's "worst person in the world." ( chirp ) oh yeah-- his and hers. - ( crowd gasping ) - ( chirp ) van gogh? ( chirp ) even steven. - ( chirp ) mansion. - ( chirp ) good to go. ( grunts ) timber! ( chirp ) boss? what do we do with the shih-tzu? - ( crowd gasps ) - ( chirp ) joint custody. - phew! - announcer: get work done now. communicate in less than a second with nextel direct connect. only on the now network. deaf, hard of hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com.

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wilderness years of the republican party, besides wing nut birther and deather conspiracy theories, it is not entirely clear what the gop plan is for a triumphant return. our number one story, what is clear, if you peered into the wilderness today, you caught a glimpse of a three-on-one knockdown cat fight among the daughter of the last republican presidential candidate and what she calls a trifecta of extreme female conservative pundits. there they are right here.

last friday during a live chat on politico.com, extreme right wing commentator and author michelle malkin responded to the following question from matthew -- who is a conservative political figure or commentator who you think needs to shut up? malkin's response, hmm, interesting question. on the right, less meghan mccain. ms. mccain who considers herself a moderate republican voice, she responded to her column in "the daily beast," so michelle malkin rounds out the trifecta following me and laura ingraham and ann coulter saying i need to shut up and get out of the party. is this surprising? not really. malkin has the number one book on the "the new york times" bestseller hardcover nonfiction list but i have nearly twice as many twitter followers as she does. and trust me, twitter is more of an indication of where young people are than books published by the hyper conservative publisher rendergy. back in march, mccain use her blog to call coulter on the

carpet. subsequently, radio talk show host ingraham knee-capped the card for playing the moderate card, effectively calling her a fat valley girl. >> ann, do you think anyone would be talking to you if you are kind of cute and you weren't the daughter of john mccain? or do you think they would just think you're just another valley girl gone awry? okay, i was hoping i was going to get that role in "the real world," but then i realized that, well, they don't like plus-sized models. >> laura's doing that helium stuff again. joining us from los angeles. joining us from washington. good evening. >> good evening, keith. >> let me start with the republican plan that i don't really see. throw out the moderates. alienate them. asked for i.d. before letting anybody in the big, get rid of the young people, ignore anyone as nuanced as meghan mccain. or more nuanced than megan mccain. the goal of this is what? >> it is apparently to lose. everything he mentioned is not a recipe for electoral success. the republican party and

ideological track, the moderates, as you indicated, have been pushed out. the ones who are left are the screamers, whether they're at town halls or whether it's people like michelle malkin and ann coulter and others. and what ends up happening is the louder they scream, the more they alienate moderates, and i would say independents. so overall, you have a serious problem in terms of being able to reach out to the critical new demographics that any party needs to be able to reach out to and attract if you're going to be competitive in elections. so there's a reason why republicans keep losing elections. and if they keep this path up or this strategy up, it's only going to get worse and worse and worse. >> what is the thing with meghan mccain, though? is it the name? is it the message? what is it? >> it's both. i think part of this is a visceral dislike of john mccain. apparently, some conservatives didn't think he was conservative enough. i also think it's an attack on the message, that if the